A Little's Enough
by DarkElements10
Summary: "One of the most beautiful qualities of true friendship is to understand and to be understood." Lucius Annaeus Seneca.


**A Little's Enough**

**By: Riley**

**Summary – "**One of the most beautiful qualities of true friendship is to understand and to be understood." ~Lucius Annaeus Seneca. DakxRiley friendship.

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Red paint here, black paint there, a tad of blue here.

"You are so predictable it's not even funny,"

Dak Zevon looked up from his canvas and to the side at the teenage girl that was sitting next to him. She had her little more than shoulder length black hair pulled out of her face in a high-ponytail, which was different for her. She usually had it in pigtails and her hair covering her face. He knew the reason though no one else did, it was so that she could hide behind her hair, so that no one would be able to see through her, or look into her dark blue eyes and know what was going on behind them. He always knew what was going on behind them whenever he was around her, though, teasing and annoyance.

Dak turned back to his painting, picking up his brush and dabbing it into the black paint once more. He then leaned forward and gently swished it over the half-finished canvas that rested on his lap, his legs crossed. He sat back, allowing the gentle breeze to blow over him, before he continued. Below the balcony, he could hear the other residents of his apartment building in the pool. He was glad that they were having a day as good as he was having. If he could take time away from the stresses and paint, he would be fine. And it was something that he only really shared with one other person.

"How am I predictable?" Dak couldn't help the smile that wormed on his face.

"You do the same thing each time you paint," his companion, Riley Jackson-McGuire replied calmly. She was sitting next to him, slouched down so that her feet were resting on the edge of the couch, her knees drawn up. "You start off using the same colors, red, black, blue, and usually end up painting a sunset or a set of flowers." She held up her free hand into the peace sign. "Bonus point if both are in the same picture, Zevon. It's kind of annoying."

Dak's eyebrow quirked as he turned to look at her painting. At the moment, he wasn't sure what it was supposed to be, but had to guess that it had to do with the ocean, as there was a lot of blue in it. "Oh yeah? Well, so do you," he replied. "Almost all of your paintings have to do with water."

"I'm not a water baby for nothing," Riley said. She sat up, stretching her back, before dipping her own brush into water and then filling it up with green paint. "So how are things going with you right now? Now that A Separate Peace is done?"

"Fine I guess," Dak said honestly. "I mean, the worst part is just waiting for another job to come my way and not knowing what to do to fill up the free time." He frowned, tapping the rounded end of his brush against an empty part of his canvas. "I've been trying to avoid my mom's calls as much as possible."

"Is she trying to tell you what to do?" Riley briefly looked at him before going back to her painting.

"No, it's more like she's trying to find a way to guilt me into coming back," Dak said.

"Well, it's better than what she does to us whenever we're around." Riley shook her head. "I think I liked it better when you mom didn't know my name. Now it's just creepy and I can't think of anything but a wax statue whenever I look at her." She held up a hand. "No offense, mate,"

"No, it's ok." Dak laughed. "I'm glad someone said it, and if there was anyone that would be blunt about it, it would be you."

"Well, I don't like anyone, adult or not, that judges me because of the way I look before they get to know me," Riley said, holding a bit of a defensive tone in her voice. "That's why WayneWayne's mom and I don't get along very well either."

"Ha!" Dak laughed again. "I got you beat. She thinks that he and I are together-together, since I moved in with him." He held up a finger. "But, she thinks that we're in denial about admitting it, because Lizz is there too and we don't want to make things weird."

"I wouldn't put it that far," Riley said, smirking. "You guys have done some…questionable things before."

"So have you," Dak reminded her, lowering his voice.

Riley bobbed her head back and forth. "But you were the one who was gullible enough to listen to everything that I told you, or somewhat dared you to do."

He had known her since she was fourteen fresh from Australia to start getting used to the American market and their producer, Ronan, asked if he would help them. He readily agreed, wanting to help whomever he could in the industry, especially since he was starting to move onto musical theater. They weren't friends at first, she was very shut in around him and wasn't shy about insulting him or saying something somewhat insulting right to his face, but then warmed up to him after Ronan told her he was a nice guy.

But it also surprised him that someone that was so…impulsive had a softer side and enjoyed painting as much as he did. So much so that when she first offered if he wanted to go painting with her, he wasn't sure if she was joking. But it was something that they had in common and probably the _only _thing that they really had in common apart from making fun of each other, baseball, and hockey. The only time that they made a truce of not making fun (unless it couldn't be helped) was then they were painting, that was when they usually had their more serious conversations.

"Seriously, you'd think that at fifteen years old you wouldn't give in to peer pressure so easily," Riley added, a teasing lift to her tone. There had been countless times, shortly after she met Dak, when she was simply bored or seeing what he would do to be their friend (and it was obvious that he was trying), she (along with her brothers and sister) would try to talk into doing stupid things; sticking his tongue on the end of a battery, toilet paper a house, play ding-dong ditch, light things on fire with a magnifying glass, shoplift. He didn't understand until much later it was beacause they were acting out to get attention to the abuse they were dealing with, he just wanted to be their friend. Unbeknownst to him as she had never (and probably would never) told him that all of the times he refused to do it, he had gained her respect.

"It's not my fault you were so convincing," Dak defended himself. "Only fourteen years old and you could talk you way out of or into anything."

"I can still do that." Riley laughed. "Though I'm not entirely proud of it, and neither is Ronan for that matter."

Dak noticed the frown on her face. "I'm proud of you, you know." He noticed the skeptical look and put down his brush. "I'm being completely serious right now, Rage. I'm proud of you and the way that you changed over the years to show people who you really are." He shrugged. "I remember when you were a fourteen year old wild child and while you still can be that way, which is fun, you really showed how you can be the friend that I always knew you could be; nice, loyal, fun, sweet, and sarcastic."

"Was that your first impression of me?" Riley concentrated on her work.

"No," Dak said honesty. "My first impression of you was that you had anger management issues and that you were kinda crazy. But I know that first impressions aren't everything and Ronan had nothing but good things to say about you all, so…" He used his index finger to draw circles on his canvas. "What was your first impression of me?"

"That you had a really big forehead," Riley said. "And your mouth did this weird triangle thing when you smiled. But I knew that you were dedicated to what you were doing…though you didn't seem completely happy."

And she was right. Dak did enjoy working on TV and in TV movies and in films, but it got monotonous after a while, as he was a little type casted. He wasn't a full fledge typecast, but there were a bunch of similar roles that his parents had wanted him to go out for, pushing him hard for each one. Music Theatre was different to him, he got to do a lot of different things and there were so many different characters he could put himself into to try and make them come alive. Plus he got to travel and traveling was something that he always enjoyed.

"I'm proud of you too, you know," Riley said. Her voice was soft and he knew that she was being really open with what she had been feeling. She didn't like to talk about her feeling a lot and when she did, she got really quiet and shy about it. "Everything that you accomplished…I know I don't show it a lot, but I am. That's why I'll always be there on your opening night and your final matinee. Why I'll help you with whatever you need; whether Lizzie needs to be watched, if you're too busy to make dinner, if you need someone to talk to, if you're sick, whatever." She took a deep breath. "I know that things haven't been the same between us since the guys came around, that we haven't hung out as much. I don't even know the last time that we played the guitar together. And I'm sorry about that, it's my fault."

Dak listened quietly, knowing that I was probably going to be the only time that he would hear it.

"I put myself into whatever I was working on to keep my mind off of what was going on with Robert at the time. And the boys really needed a lot of help; but it was easier to put all into my work with them because we were here for six months consecutively working with them, while when we were working with you, we were going back home every two weeks because Robert didn't think it was quite right for us to only focus on the US. That's why we waited until we were sixteen. So, in that case, while I was busy trying to keep them from finding out what was going on, and because they wouldn't stop bugging me, _and _since I had to work so much more with them, than we had with you, I kind of ignored the friendship that we, I guess, have even though I'm usually really good at dividing my time."

"Wait, what do you mean, 'you guess'?" Dak was amused.

"Because I don't really get why you're my friend sometimes," Riley admitted.

"Then I guess it's partially my fault, too," Dak said. "Cause I didn't really try to show you that I really do value you as my friend." Riley snorted but didn't say anything else. "Hey, you can't laugh at me!" He poked her on the arm. "There's nothing funny about what I said." He placed a hand on his chest, sniffing "I was having a heartfelt mom and you _ruined _it." He then poked her on the cheek. "Let's just see if I do it again."

"I won't hold my breath."

They painted in silence.

"Thanks, Little Lady." Dak turned to her with a smile. Riley looked at him, confused, and then her face cleared when she remembered their old joke. The two of them knew then that things were fine, even if they didn't hang out as much as they used to, they would always be there to help or lend an ear if needed. She dropped her canvas and held up her hands, sticking out her chin.

"Fuggedaboutit," she replied, waving her hands, speaking in a mobster kind of way.

The two laughed and then held out their hands like they were going to shake hands. But then they slapped palms and then slapped the back of their hands before wiggling their fingers up into the air, making a bird-tweeting sound with their mouths.

They used to do that too.

_Red paint here, black paint there, a tad of blue here._

**THE END**

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**A/N: **I got the idea for this randomly today and wanted to write it. I still have the idea for that possible romance fic between them and I'm still not sure if I'll write it, I'm still leaning towards not doing it though. My one-shots are never that long because I like to get to the point of them from the get-go, just so you all know.

As for the summary/quote that I used for this one-shot, I think it describes Dak and Riley's friendship well. Though they don't spend a lot of time together and only have a few things in common, Riley holds him in a special place in her heart (which we all know must be big for all of the friends that she had made over the years) for him since he was one of her first friends in LA.

I hope you guys liked it.

Cheers,

-Riles


End file.
